Organisational efforts for biome
As, the environmental degradation, species decline, and habitat loss continue to accelerate, the earth’s life support systems, as illustrated of late in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), are under increasing stress – in some cases to the breaking point, by human activity. Much of the world’s biodiversity now exists solely in isolated reserves or protected areas, and although there are more organisations and groups devoted to conservation than ever before – things are getting worse.

Environmental organisations, however, generally do not directly control or ‘own’ the biodiversity and natural resources they are seeking to conserve, and thus in most cases, cannot act directly to preserve these resources. The common mission of these organisations, rather, is to better understand the natural world and the stresses that human society is placing on the environment. They also want to develop and perfect approaches for using and conserving these resources in a responsible and equitable manner, and influence those whose decisions most directly impact biodiversity. Indeed, generating comprehensive data, expertise, and knowledge on the distribution, conservation, and sustainable use of biodiversity are central tenets of the conservation community.

Information, therefore, is arguably the most valuable contribution made by the environmental community towards the preservation of the web of life on this planet.

Data conservation for environment conservation
Digital information and data resources, on the other hand, are what economists term ‘non-rivalrous’ resources. That is, each incremental ‘use’ does not diminish either the quality nor the availability of these resources, once created and stored in a digital environment, these assets can be used, transferred, and improved indefinitely – rapidly (and exponentially) expanding our understanding of the natural world and how best to conserve it. Much of the data, information, or expertise that the conservation biologists and ecologists require is fragmented, difficult to find, or simply not accessible to the conservation community.

This challenge is magnified where varying data formats and standards limit ‘interoperability’ – or how data contained in independent systems may interconnect –impeding conservation efforts domestically, as well as at regional and global levels.

In the event that we are able to identify the resources we need, difficulties abound when we attempt to integrate the plethora of data and information into useful forms. Common standards to easily relate, say, taxonomic records with bio-geographic information such as soil or vegetation types, or ‘best practice’ regarding the conservation of a particular taxonomic group or ecosystem in a way useful for policy makers, in most cases simply do not exist.

Information sharing initiatives may also run up against substantial cultural, institutional, and legal barriers. In the case of conservation organisations, while they may share a common mission they are also friendly rivals (and at times competitors) with respect to funding and public attention.

Indigenous communities have also voiced strong concerns that they have increasingly lost control of their knowledge resources – indeed their cultural heritage– to commercial or other interests. These challenges also provide opportunities for conservation agencies to collectively find solutions.

Identifying Solutions
Conservation and research organisations wishing to actively pursue an open access approach to information and knowledge management could simply act unilaterally and place their assets in the public domain. This response, however, poses the potential constraints of information resources created for scientific, educational, and related purposes be used for commercial gain. These considerations led to a proposed alternative as a complement to the pure public domain. The notion of a biodiversity or conservation ‘knowledge commons’, defining a framework of free yet equitable use for data, information and knowledge resources (i.e. a ‘zone of fair use’) began to take root in the mid-1990s.

A group of prominent conservation organisations came together in 1995 to establish an institutional framework for data and information sharing, the Biodiversity Conservation Information System (BCIS) and build on the simple notion that by working together to effectively share information resources the conservation community could achieve far more than through individual action. Led by Colin Bibby of Birdlife International, this effort paralleled similar initiatives gaining momentum in the open source software community, the creative arts, and medical research fields. The purpose of BCIS was to encourage and nurture the conscious sharing of biodiversity knowledge resources within the global conservation community, and to support environmentally sound decision-making and action.

BCIS Consortium Members Birdlife International Botanical Gardens Conservation International Conservation International ISIS IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management IUCN Commission on Environmental Law IUCN Species Survival Commission IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas The Nature Conservancy - NatureServe TRAFFIC Wetlands International The World Conservation Monitoring Center